Sapphire wants to replace my X1900XT with a X1950Pro

Its interesting how a thread concerning a company that apparently isn't a sponsor of HardOCP.com goes on for 17 pages, yet when I was complaining about a similar situation with a sponsor of HardOCP, mine got locked after just 3 pages.
 
pfunkman said:
I have been following this thread since day 1 your taking a bunch of random people signing up on sapphires forums and getting banned as poor treatment of cutomers...
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The thread originally started when the OP needed to RMA a bunk x1900xt thru sapphires customer support, when they told him they would only give him an x1950pro for it (slower card). What got this thread traction was the fact that sapphire SPONSORED forum mods are lashing out at all of these people for real problems (me included).

Dethred, I am not even going to start with you, your problems with evga are nowhere near this bad, not even close, you got the VIP treatment compared to this.
 
Simpson5774 said:
Dethred, I am not even going to start with you, your problems with evga are nowhere near this bad, not even close, you got the VIP treatment compared to this.
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That isn't even what I was talking about. Read my post a few more times.
 
Dethred said:
That isn't even what I was talking about. Read my post a few more times.
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I just read your thread and it was closed because people are eVGA fanboys and cant stfu. I had many issues with eVGA and will not purchase from them either. However, no one got VIP treatment here. It was a hassle for the OP.

Lets not turn this thread into a flame war.
 
pfunkman said:
As far as offering lesser cards for EOL RMA's all the companies do it search the forums.

I believe you wuold be more surprised at such a poll. While i would agree that sapphire is behind just about everyone else with thier policies and customer service what happened here is not uncommon for alot of companies. There are very few companies that will give out "free upgrades" or cross ship and even with these companies its not unheard of for someone to recieve a lesser card for an EOL RMA or get an offer to pay for a better card.
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i didnt say it didnt happen, what i said was those are truly isolated incidents, as in, one out of every hundred....or whatever....unfortunately for Sapphire, there is a trend, go back and read the entire thread and see how many people have been shafted, no company is perfect, but Sapphire is quite obviously sucking hind tit
 
nobody_here said:
i didnt say it didnt happen, what i said was those are truly isolated incidents, as in, one out of every hundred....or whatever....unfortunately for Sapphire, there is a trend, go back and read the entire thread and see how many people have been shafted, no company is perfect, but Sapphire is quite obviously sucking hind tit
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Stop telling me to go back and read the fucking thread i have been very active in this thread since day 1 and know damn good and well what the situation is.

Im not saying sapphire is a good company im simply pointing out that this shit is done by all companies and its actually done pretty frequently. What is not done by the other companies is the treatment ladyhawk recieved from the admin of the sapphire forum.
 
pfunkman said:
Stop telling me to go back and read the fucking thread i have been very active in this thread since day 1 and know damn good and well what the situation is.

Im not saying sapphire is a good company im simply pointing out that this shit is done by all companies and its actually done pretty frequently. What is not done by the other companies is the treatment ladyhawk recieved from the admin of the sapphire forum.
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Stop making blanket statements such as "this shit is done by all companies". Your trying to stick some sensationalism into this thread. The reality is it is NOT done by all companies...

I've been building my own PCs since 1992; I work on high end unix servers for a living (SGI, Sun, IBM, Intel blade clusters...) I have RMA'd a lot of stuff over the years for my personal workstations and servers and I can honestly say you wrong...

I've had faster RMA's done in the early 90's when I ordered everything out of a magazine; this was way before you could go shopping for all of your components online.

Their level of customer support is near the bottom of what I have experienced. Certainly not the worst; but not good.

Perhaps you tend to buy the cheapest components for all of your equipment and expect crappy customer service to go along with it... All companies will have moments of bad customer service; Sapphires USA support seems to be consistently under par.

Taking over a month to get a product returned to the customer is ridiculous. Especially on products where the customer has spent over $300. They should be handled white glove; as you want the customer to spend that much again... They know they will have more "end of life" returns. Threads like this show they are not equipped to handle it well.

I don't hold anything against them for offering the lesser card; if they were completely shady they would have just sent the lesser card back...
 
Can you honestly say you would feel comfortable spending your hard earned $$ on a sapphire product knowing this is the kind of treatment you will get if you have problems?
 
Nope
Sapphire arent getting my $ nor that of any of my clients/friends/family.
I wouldnt subject them to that abuse.
 
Sapphire doesn't even acknowledge that my card is broken. Not getting my money again thats for sure.
 
pfunkman said:
Stop telling me to go back and read the fucking thread i have been very active in this thread since day 1 and know damn good and well what the situation is.

Im not saying sapphire is a good company im simply pointing out that this shit is done by all companies and its actually done pretty frequently. What is not done by the other companies is the treatment ladyhawk recieved from the admin of the sapphire forum.
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well, if you've read the thread, and you still want to insist that the other companies are somehow doing the same thing...you are ignorant and i have no good suggestions for you other than to go ahead and make excuses for them.....when things like this do happen with other companies, it is an isolated incident.....but it is a very common event for Sapphire obviously

i am not sure why you are set on defending them or somehow trying to prop them up as being "only as bad as any of the other companies" or that "the other companies are no better", because that is simply 100% false and you should look around and notice you are the only zealot trying to put them on an equal playing field with the others who are obviously far superior
 
nobody_here said:
well, if you've read the thread, and you still want to insist that the other companies are somehow doing the same thing...you are ignorant and i have no good suggestions for you other than to go ahead and make excuses for them.....when things like this do happen with other companies, it is an isolated incident.....but it is a very common event for Sapphire obviously

i am not sure why you are set on defending them or somehow trying to prop them up as being "only as bad as any of the other companies" or that "the other companies are no better", because that is simply 100% false and you should look around and notice you are the only zealot trying to put them on an equal playing field with the others who are obviously far superior
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Whatr makes you think im defending sapphire? Read what i have typed nowhere have a ireally stuck up fior them im simply saying what they tried doing is common practice.

If you actually believe this is not common then your ignorantly blinded by the few "free upgrade" threads and have not spent alot of time in the business. I can tell you as someone that worked at a local PC shop for 4 years we would usually have at least 1 RMA out at a time and i can tell you many times i have either had to explain to my customer that their things where replaced by a lesser product because it is old or my company would take the hit to make it right.

You guys can continue to argue but after personally handling easily over 75 RMA's over the years i can tell you that you have no clue. Now i can say that i have not personally handled any RMA's through sapphire but besides the forum shit i have been given the runaround like ladyhawk by just about every company i have dealt with.
 
pfunkman said:
Whatr makes you think im defending sapphire? Read what i have typed nowhere have a ireally stuck up fior them im simply saying what they tried doing is common practice.

If you actually believe this is not common then your ignorantly blinded by the few "free upgrade" threads and have not spent alot of time in the business. I can tell you as someone that worked at a local PC shop for 4 years we would usually have at least 1 RMA out at a time and i can tell you many times i have either had to explain to my customer that their things where replaced by a lesser product because it is old or my company would take the hit to make it right.

You guys can continue to argue but after personally handling easily over 75 RMA's over the years i can tell you that you have no clue. Now i can say that i have not personally handled any RMA's through sapphire but besides the forum shit i have been given the runaround like ladyhawk by just about every company i have dealt with.
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you know what, f-it

dont click on me

i think you are fighting an endless battle, take pride in trying to make "all the other" AIB's an equal to Sapphire, as if, what Sapphire has done and will continue to do to its paying customers is "acceptable" because you think they are no worse than anyone else

i welcome you to reality, whenever you decide to open the door

im done here
 
I've done ~ 40 RMAs and I have never been treated as bad as I had by Sapphire. They were slow, stupid and totally unhelpful. Most of those RMAs have been from gaming rigs that I built for my friends that I used 12 7900GTs for and they suffered memory issues and eVGA replaced them all with 7950GTs and apologized for the nVidia screwup with the 7900GT. Now Sapphire kinda maybe thought about doing an actual RMA and then decide to treat me like shit and tried to send me an X1950Pro from a X1900XT (same as ladyhawk) and I refused and then they said they found a new card and..... Sent me the same broken card back. Seriously, I'm not stupid.
 
nobody_here said:
you know what, f-it

dont click on me

i think you are fighting an endless battle, take pride in trying to make "all the other" AIB's an equal to Sapphire, as if, what Sapphire has done and will continue to do to its paying customers is "acceptable" because you think they are no worse than anyone else

i welcome you to reality, whenever you decide to open the door

im done here
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Open your fucking eyes man noweher have i claimed that sapphire is equal to anything i simply said that the practice of trying to give out a lesser product in return for an EOL RMA is common practice.

Your putting words in my mouth and arguing with yourself. All you keep going on about is how im sticking up for sapphire and im not if you cant see that then sorry...
 
pfunkman said:
Open your fucking eyes man noweher have i claimed that sapphire is equal to anything i simply said that the practice of trying to give out a lesser product in return for an EOL RMA is common practice.

Your putting words in my mouth and arguing with yourself. All you keep going on about is how im sticking up for sapphire and im not if you cant see that then sorry...
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You have absolutely no common sense.
 
SiGGy said:
Well I'm in the same boat...

My X1900XT started to distort and have lots of rendering errors.

I called and got the RMA started. They told me 2-4 weeks on the phone when I gave them all of my information including the card model #.

Then a week after I mailed them my card I asked how long it'll take.... they responded back with

So responded and asked what their experience has been with RMA's of "discontinued" cards. And they cannot give me time frame. So I guess I'll just expect more than 4 weeks... But who knows...

I've never spent so much money on a piece of "high tech" technology to have such a low tech support system in place.

I mean how can you not be able to estimate turn around time on equipment you are constantly dealing with. It's not like my X1900XT is the only one they have received in the past month... give me a break.

Unfortunately the video card is for my workstation... it's not in a "gaming rig" so I'm really hosed, I work out of my house... to say this is aggravating doesn't quite cover it.

Normally I'd just buy another crossfire card to go with it; but I don't feel at all comfortable purchasing another sapphire product if this is how they "support" their customers...

They could save themselves a lot of typing by just emailing everyone "we received your card; sometime in the future you will get a card back; maybe"

Anyhoo... just thought I would share. If I get it back in a reasonable ammount of time I'll post about it...

This is the only RMA I have ever done where they didn't just simply cross ship the return... or have one ready to go after I submitted the RMA and they received/verified the problem.
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I would PM Kyle and see if he can help you get some results.
 
Wow what a thread. My two cents - if one of my 1900s died there is no way I would take a 1950pro as a replacement, it's a pretty large downgrade in my opinion and totally unacceptable. The dollar value of the cards was never too similar when they were both selling. I feel this is a situation where the company should accept the small loss of upgrading the OP to something in-stock of the same or greater performance in order to keep them coming back. Good luck to everyone dealing with Sapphire as I've had my share of drama from them as well. Apart from losing a 9800pro completely, they also refused to take my clearly sapphire-built x800gto2 back and I had to give info and pictures of the card to three different departments before they RMA'd me a blue-PCB POS which can't clock at all (old one did 600/600 on water). I understand why the card swap was necessary and I can't really argue for compensation for my overclocked performance on the old card, but it does kind of stink.
 
Nenu said:
Not true, I had a look around their forums a few times and saw similar behaviour from the same mod.
He needs replacing by someone who can add the 'care' to Customer Care.
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That will never happen.:( ...Complaining to Sapphire's main Hong Kong office about the treatment I recieved, just made them close ranks, I was told to go away and all my threads vanished. Strange that;) ...Their "support" admin had a few uncomplimentary words to say about everyone here too.:(
 
and this thread is the whole reason i havnt jumped on a 3850agp yet. sapphire is the only one that has cards for sale in the US right now.
 
I got the dreaded email... They asked if I wanted a X1950Pro as a replacement. :(

I thanked them for the offer and said no and explained it was an inferior card (less piplines/slower GPU). I asked if they could replace it with a X1950XT instead.

I just got an email back while I was typing this...

X1950XT is also a discontinued item. We will inform Sapphire to keep locate a replacement for you.


We truly apologize for the inconveniences this may have caused you.Thank you for your patience and understanding.
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So now I guess I just sit here waiting until they locate a replacement... :(
 
SiGGy said:
I got the dreaded email... They asked if I wanted a X1950Pro as a replacement. :(

I thanked them for the offer and said no and explained it was an inferior card (less piplines/slower GPU). I asked if they could replace it with a X1950XT instead.

I just got an email back while I was typing this...



So now I guess I just sit here waiting until they locate a replacement... :(
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Incredible, they must enjoy reading this thread!

Also if you can afford a GTS (find a cheap one), you wont look back.
I have the GT and would really like a GTS now.
Its up to 10% faster for the same clock speed, clocks faster and pumps its hot air outside the PC case.
 
Nenu said:
Incredible, they must enjoy reading this thread!

Also if you can afford a GTS (find a cheap one), you wont look back.
I have the GT and would really like a GTS now.
Its up to 10% faster for the same clock speed, clocks faster and pumps its hot air outside the PC case.
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Thanks for the tips; I didn't even think about it exhausting inside the case :(

So far this is my winner... I don't have a lot of $$; But I can't leave my workstation running on my 1994 ATI mach64 /w 2MB of video ram anymore. I'll give Sapphire/Althon Micro another 1-2 weeks...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130325
 
Ask them for a HD3850 512MB. I'm pretty sure we all know what the answer will be, but at least you will know that it's not going to be pretty.
Not to nit pick, but if they are quoting excuses for X1950XT, the card offered (x1950 Pro) is also discontinued.
Just find it fascinating Sapphire made the decision to not stock replacement parts for high end models, obviously for inventory reasons, but expect the customer to take the hit when an issue occurs. I understand companies that offer lifetime warranties run accross the issue for replacement parts more often (EVGA, XFX, BFG), but for companies only offering warranty for 1 year and not have spare parts on that product was intentional. At the very least step you up to HD3850 (<2X the cost of the X1950XT in retail).
I try to play devils advocate when I see an RMAs for older product (X1900XT I still consider current so I'm thinking more of ). On one side people spent good money on that product at that time and want that product to last for the entire warranty period. But on the flip side Companies don't want to stock high end products, or old inventory, that they can't sell. I think at minimum Manufacturers should hold on to parts for the last 2 gens or step you up to the same class in this gen (ie 7900GTX == 7900GTX or 8800GTX). After your 3 (Question?) gens back I think it's fair to say that your no longer on the bleeding edge and more than likely anything midrange in the current gen should equal the same performance.
Either case how manufacturers deal with lifetime warranties will be interesting that will only get more difficult when the customer bases is expanding and products are coming out sometimes twice a year.
 
lgestle said:
Ask them for a HD3850 512MB. I'm pretty sure we all know what the answer will be, but at least you will know that it's not going to be pretty.
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Does it start with an N and end with an o?

anyway, why haven't I unsubscribed to this thread yet...
 
lgestle said:
Ask them for a HD3850 512MB. I'm pretty sure we all know what the answer will be, but at least you will know that it's not going to be pretty.
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Honestly I spent $300 on my card, I also purchased another X1900XTX at the time. They are aware of this I sent them the wrong invoice by accident the 1st time. I was surprised when they said NO to my invoice the 1st time and asked for the invoice with the X1900XT on it.

I think that card is acceptable. I can purchase it for $214. I spent $300 on the X1900XT.

I'll try and ask... sending an email now. I won't hold my breath though.
 
My response to asking for a HD3850 :(

I am afraid we will not be able to offer you this card, we will continue to search and locate the proper card as a replacement for you.
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I posted a while back when this thread was new.....I got the same run around from Sapphire that Ladyhawk got......That was 2 years ago, and that was the last Sapphire product I bought...

It was one of the thousand X1950 Pro AGP cards that were junk...They knew they were junk..
I waited over 6 weeks for an RMA replacement and was forced to pay them $25.00 for a card that only lasted 2 days.....

Never again will they get a dollar from me ..
 
Figured the answer would be no. Personally I agree it would be a downgrade 300+ MSRP vs 175$. It would have been an option to keep your performance the same (crossfire excluding with your other X1900XT). So it looks like they are only giving you a X1950 Pro or endless wait. Great option Sapphire!
Good luck and keep us posted. Personally this thread steared me away when I purchased my HD3870s (Bought a HIS and Visiontek), so it does serve some purpose for potential consumers.
 
lgestle said:
Figured the answer would be no. Personally I agree it would be a downgrade 300+ MSRP vs 175$. It would have been an option to keep your performance the same (crossfire excluding with your other X1900XT). So it looks like they are only giving you a X1950 Pro or endless wait. Great option Sapphire!
Good luck and keep us posted. Personally this thread steared me away when I purchased my HD3870s (Bought a HIS and Visiontek), so it does serve some purpose for potential consumers.
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I build computers for people every once in awhile. So I ordered a bunch of Sapphire cards at the same time.

What sucks for me is this is my workstation I use for work. I only had one X1900XT PCI-E installed in it. I have no other PCI-E cards. The others I ordered we for the other computers I built.

So I'm running on an *old* ATI mach64 PCI card with 2MB of video ram I've had since 1994... :cry: I have a lot of AGP cards; but they do me little good since my MOBO is PCI-E only.

I'm about 3 weeks into my Sapphire RMA "process" now...
 
I know someone will find this amusing...

here's my e-mail... in response to them saying they can't give me a HD3850

Ok. I'm a bit confused as to why?

$15 certified check to you
$15 I paid shipping it you
$300 I paid for the card originally

I'm $330 into my X1900XT now. The HD3850 is $214 retail... your costs are obviously much lower.

You said you couldn't get me a X1950XT because it is discontinued. However you offered me a X1950pro; but the X1950pro is also discontinued... I find it a bit odd that you can offer a lesser discontinued card and not an equal or better discontinued card.

I do appreciate all of the efforts that you the RMA dept. have been going through for me. But I'm starting to lose confidence in Sapphires ability to stand behind it's products. I've purchased many Sapphire products in the past year. I think you might be aware of that as I sent you another invoice by accident when I 1st started this RMA process.

When can I expect an equal or better replacement card to be found? You handle these types of returns constantly I'd expect you to be able to forecast a realistic time frame.
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here's their response ...

I am sorry for the delay, but we are trying our best to have our manufacture locate the card for us, we will get it for you ASAP.
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I'll await someone taking my $$ numbers above and making up a "priceless" joke.

I'm only posting this so others can see what dealing with them is like...

I *really* hope they get on the ball and make this right. It's really concerning me that I built computers for people that might have to experience this as well.
 
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